sftp

Hello, I have been informed that I will need to start using SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) to FTP files to our production server. Are there any APIs that ship with Java that can be used for SFTP? Thanks, Rob

Hi Rob, I think SFTP is the Simple File Transfer Protocol, which is a scaled down version of FTP. Now there are Security extensions to FTP. You can read the boring white paper here RFC 2228. You can get info on a comercially available Java version here Secure FTP Wrapper. Your final alternative is write your own wrapper for client and server and do the encrypting/decrypting yourself. Michael Morris

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction. - Ernst F. Schumacher

hi rob, well, i think the SFTP is a Secure FTP which is a part of the Secure Shell suite like SCP (Secure Copy). its easy to write/find FTP client written in java (i myself 've one) but it is a little complex thing to write SFTP client in java. the reason is it has to follow secure ftp conventions of, public/private keys, encrypting/decrypting data etc.. below links might be more useful,link1link2 regards maulin.

Maulin Vasavada
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Joined: Nov 04, 2001
Posts: 1873

posted Mar 26, 2003 20:59:00

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btw Rob, if u r on unix then u can also think of running sftp that is provided by the shell and invoke it via the shell script instead of writing SFTP (or getting SFTP in Java) from somewhere... on windows as well u can use a script but i am not sure of sftp working on windows if there is any.. regards maulin.

Michael Morris
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posted Mar 26, 2003 21:16:00

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Not to dipute Maulin but here is the rather old RFC 913 which describes SFTP or Simple File Transfer Protocol. Perhaps that acronym is now used to mean Secure File Transfer Protocol, but I'll be darned if I can find an RFC from any legitimate authority. Michael Morris

Maulin Vasavada
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Joined: Nov 04, 2001
Posts: 1873

posted Mar 27, 2003 01:07:00

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hi Michael, nth would dispute me easily yeah. i saw that there is this simple file transfer protocol but usually if sftp is referred in sftp term then i guess it would mean secure ftp so i pointed in that direction... but it was interesting to know that there is something like simple ftp thing. i didn't know it and when i saw the links u gave i's like - "wow, this is something new" ... the point is- what Rob is actually looking for? regards maulin.

rob fleming
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Joined: Mar 26, 2003
Posts: 2

posted Mar 27, 2003 07:58:00

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Thanks for the replies. It was a nice suprise to log into Exchange this morning and see all the messages telling me that someone had replied. I will definitely look at the links that each of you mentioned. I feel as if I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Yesterday, after posting my message I did some rather extensive looking on the Web and I found two products/APIs that may be useful. One is SSHTools, which is open source, and the other is IP*Works, which is expensive. I downloaded both of them to look at the APIs and JavaDocs and then I read the install doc for each. Both of them require Java 1.4 which is a problem because my application resides on a Weblogic 7 server which uses JDK 1.3.1_03. Rob